Saibot's Performance Journal

[saibot]

And so it begins...

I've been keeping a bit of a range journal on my shooting blog but it's really not been the best place for a training journal because it's geared more for reviews and match coverage than personal training posts. And since it's a blog it's more of a broadcast than a discussion and I really prefer two way feedback to a monologue, so this forum seems like it's the best place to interact with other serious competitors (read goal oriented) and share thoughts, ideas, and discoveries along the way.

First, a little background. I never really did much shooting until a few years ago a coworker showed me a video of him competing and I thought I had to try it out. I was hooked instantly. I started to practice a little just to feel more comfortable with my gun handling skills and not so much to start winning anything. I found these forums and before long I had Steve Anderson's dryfire book and started practicing the basics, draws and reloads and called it a day. I classified in C class in Production and have languished there every since. There has been a pretty dramatic wax and wane since then due to having offspring, and a couple of major back surgeries, so even though I've been shooting the sport for a few years now, I'm nowhere near most people that have been shooting as long as I have. And to top things off, I thought I was going to make B class a few months ago and actually dropped down a couple of points. Shocked with my new standing I decided to finally devote the resources it takes to improve and leave C class as far away as I can.

I'm pretty big on goals and no training program would be complete without setting some goals, so here are my immediate training goals.

Get the heck out of C class! I want to make B soon and I'm close, but there aren't many opportunities for me to shoot classifiers. Once a month and I have a few lousy classifiers that are bringing down my average that I'll need to make up for. Because of that, it's really hard to set a timeline for reclassifying. I guess it'll make more sense to set a goal of shooting classifiers at 62% or better for the next few months. That should give me the bump I need to move up.

I want to train as much as resources allow. Time, money, ammo, etc. are at a premium so I really have to make the most out of the time I do have. Live fire may only happen 3 or 4 times a month which is going to make it tough. But I do plan on dryfiring as much as my limbs will permit me to. For the last couple of months I've been dryfiring 5+ days a week for up to 1.5 hours and I'm making strides in my training. I will try for live fire as much as I can, but I'm pretty constrained in time available to make it all the way out to my club.

Accuracy. I need to keep it in the headbox at 25 yards consistently and quickly. I'm just not there yet and certainly can't do quickly.

Movement. Watching the pros shoot is amazing. They never stop moving (earning points) and they start breaking shots the instant they arrive at a position. It's hard to quantify this into a goal, but will be something I spend a lot of time improving.

I also just switched from a M&P Pro to a Glock G34 last week and I feel like I hit the rest button on my pistol handling skills, but the Glock's grip and ergonomics just flat out fit me better so it's back to square one.

With that, I'll start this thing out with a post I put on my blog about my first live fire session with the Glock, then catch it up with the dryfire sessons I've had since then. I think this should inspire me to keep up the training and keep me accountable.

Game on.

Edited October 8, 2013 by saibot

[saibot]

First Practice Session With The Glock (10.5.2013)

Anxious as could be about getting a chance to actually shoot my new Glock Gen4 G34, I headed over to the range this morning for my first live fire session on the new platform. I’ve spent about an hour a night over the last week dry firing the Glock trying to get used to the new pistol, holster, and magazine pouches with mixed results. I really don’t like to dry fire that much without getting in some live fire to validate my form is correct, but schedules being what they are, I just haven’t been able to get out until today.

I arrived with all of my training planned out and immediately got to work hanging steel and setting targets. I started out just shooting groups to verify that my sights were dialed in and get a chance to get a feel for my Vanek Custom trigger. I shot groups freestyle, strong hand, and weak hand and was still shooting about 3 inches to the right when shooting weak hand, an issue that just came on and I can’t seem to shake. I tried a few different grips and angle to no avail, and then tried bringing my elbow closer to center and that for some strange reason brought my weak hand groups back on to the paster. Strange, but glad I now know how to get my hits weak hand.

Now that I verified my zero and sights were hitting in the right place I moved back to 25 yards and started shooting a 6″ steel plate with mixed results. I setup a 25 yard Slow Fire target and tried shooting that and noticed that I was hitting off to the left. Looking back at my 7 yard groups showed a slight left side grouping that I hadn’t noticed since I was so close, but amplified to 25 yards it was enough to push me off of the 6″ steel plate. A couple of adjustments over a couple more 25 yard Slow Fire targets and it was hitting spot on and was getting about a 70% hit rate on the 25 yard 6″ steel plate. Not great, but I’m still trying to figure out my grip to get the sights to return to center from recoil. I then backed up to 40 yards and spent a couple of magazines on the 6″ steel plate at that distance to figure out where my sights needed to be to hit it.

My training partner and I have been wanting to take a crack at the Frank Garcia Dot drill from Ben Stoeger’s book where you have to hit a 2″ dot six times in 5 seconds without going outside of the dot from 7 yards. It really is demoralizing to shoot this drill. We moved up to 5 yard to have any hope of acing it and it really didn’t make too much difference. I was able to get 4 inside the dot before the par time, but never all 6. Brutal.

While we had the two USPSA targets up and shot to pieces we decided to shoot the Four Aces drill, another from Ben’s book, but instead of using the lower A zone, we substituted it with the head. The drill has you draw and put two shots into the A zone, then reload and put two more shots into the A zone. The Glock just devoured this drill and just kept putting rounds into the A box of the head, consistently in the 4 second range.

Borrowing yet another drill from Ben’s book, we setup the Accelerator, a drill that has you setup a USPSA target at 7 yards, 15 yards, and 25 yards, all in a line. You draw, in our case, to the 7 yard target, and put two hits on it then move to the 15 yard target for two hits, two more hits on the 25 yard target, then perform a reload and put two more hits on each target. The goal of this drill is to force you into a different sight picture and shooting speed for every target which doesn’t seem like a big deal, but to pull this drill off quickly with all A zone hits is darn tough.

After we shot the Accelerator for a while we taped up the targets and ran a few Bill drills on them, all at 7 yards to see how fast you can put six rounds in the A zone of a target. The Bill drill is a classic drill for a reason. It let’s you know how fast you can run the gun and track the sights. It also points out any imperfections in your grip since your sights will not return strait back down and your hits will be slow and all over the place. I took a few cracks at it and couldn’t get under 2.40 which is about what I used to run with my M&P. The funny thing is that I could get .14 splits with the M&P all day long and can’t touch that with the Glock. Even with the Vanek trigger I rarely get under .20 splits so I’m really making up the time on the draw with the Glock. The grip is the reason I moved from the M&P to the Glock in the first place and it’s already paying dividends. My draw is nowhere near where I want it but already faster than it was with the M&P since I almost always nail the grip and in turn, pick up the sights sooner. So even with the slow splits I’m getting to work on the targets faster which is ultimately more important in my opinion.

There is a Transition Drill in the Enos forums that I’ve been wanting to try where Brian has you put three USPSA targets 1 yard apart with you starting 10 yards away. When the timer sounds you draw and from left to right put 1 round on each target 3 times for a total of 9 rounds, being sure to get A zone hits. You take your time and add a half of a second for every shot outside of the A zone to calculate your total time for the drill. You are supposed to run the drill 6 – 10 times and get your average time, then PM Brian with the time and he will ask you to try something different the next time to run it that will improve your times. Reading through the posts it seem like whatever Brian is telling people to do is showing real improvement for people that rerun the drill, so PM sent! I’m looking forward to the information he gives out to improve transitions since that is a real weak point for me. My training partner on the other hand has transitions that are commonly the same times as his splits which is a goal of mine and really fun to see him perform. Instead of the “bang, bang, pause, bang, bang” you normally hear it’s just “bang, bang, bang, bang” and done.

We finished up by going back to the 25 yard 6″ plates to gauge how we were doing after being warmed up and dialed in, again, looking for a percentage by noting how many misses from a 10 round attempt. I missed two for a total of 80%. The interesting thing was I missed shot 2 and 3, adjusted my grip pressure by squeezing tighter and made every shot after that. I know there is a lot of back and forth about grip pressure vs. accuracy but it really does seem they are not diametrically opposed, rather increasing one means increasing the other, at least for me. The only real drawback for me is that I can only apply that kind of pressure for so long before the fatigue kicks in. And trying to be consistent in dry fire by giving the same grip pressure is probably going to result in some kind of overuse issue in my wrists and elbows. That is one thing that I have a love/hate relationship with in this sport. You really never stop learning. You never can tick the box on a certain skill and move on. You’re always learning and hopefully improving.

With that, we decided we’d had enough and pulled targets and policed our brass. It was a half day of pretty intense training and our attention spans were pretty much cooked at that point. All in all, I had put 400 rounds downrange and felt like I was already starting to meld with the Glock. It was great to see our groups tighten up throughout the day and now it was off to start thinking about everything we discovered throughout the day’s drills. I was also deeply pleased with how well the new Glock ran. 400 flawless rounds right off the bat is a great way to start the relationship! So no regrets from moving off of the M&P so far. I hope with a little more practice I can get my splits back down to the .14 range, but even if the platform just won’t allow that, it really makes up for that in ergonomics. I’m already looking forward to the next practice session with it!

Edited October 8, 2013 by saibot

[saibot]

Dry fire practice (10.6.2013)

Tonight I ran the Seeklander Your Competition Handgun Training Program B drills which focuses on reloads. I really like the new Glock magazines over the S&W magazines when it comes to reloading. The stubby base plates make it easier to alight the magazine properly. I really like the movement drills and the swinging reloads drill was great. I was just on tonight and nailing my reloads in record time for me. I did a lot more reps than outlined in the program and ended with running my dry fire stage the lives in my garage. All in all I dryfired for around 1.5 hours

[saibot]

Dry fire practice (10.7.2013).

Tonight I ran the A drills from the Seeklander book for an hour and a half that focuses on drawing. I ran all of the drills a few times trying to see what various grip pressures do for quick sight alignment. Did a bunch of extra reps and did some reload drills from last night. I finished up running a few dryfire stages in my garage.

On a side note I find that I really slow down when shooting (drawing) around a barricade. I'll need to revisit this drill soon.

[saibot]

Live fire practice (10.8.2013)

Ran over to the range for a quick round of drills today. I started out shooting 10 round groups to try and get a feel for the Glock trigger. The first group strong hand was about 1.5 inches, the second group was strong hand only and was pretty nasty with a group size of about 5 inches. The third group was weak hand only and was about 3 inches to the right. Ridiculous. About 5 rounds into the group I rolled my WH elbow in toward the center and drilled out the center of the paster. Amazing that little adjustment made that big of difference. The most vexing part is I can't for the life of me explain it. I'll have to revisit this.

Next was warming up on a 6 inch steel plate at 25 yards. 7 hits out of 10 rounds. Not great, but still experimenting with grip and sight picture.

Moved on to a half dozen of the Frank Garcia's Dots at 5 yards. Can dang close to cleaning it a couple of time and my misses were pretty close so I'm pleased with my attempts today. Already better than the last time I attempted it.

I shot a 25 yard Slow Fire target and kept shooting off to the left, all called which was pretty cool. A couple of the 10 rounds were right in the center and the overall group size wasn't great, but slightly better than the last time I shot it. I wanted to shoot it a few more times but the rain was really kicking up at this point and I wanted to move on to some other drills and cut this one short. I really need to tighten up my long range shooting.

Shot 6 runs of the 4 Aces drill all on the headbox at 10 yards I believe. I was hitting it pretty consistently in the 4 second range with draws in the 1.2x - 1.3x range with no misses.

Raining like hell now. But wanted to try the Enos Transition drill part 2 and took 4 or 5 cracks at it. My last time was 6.22 clean which was the best time I've ever shot it in. My last times were:

7.58, 7.85, 6.88, 7.91, 7.61, 6.89 so I'm happy with Brian's advice to say the least. I'll have to work on this more and refine his technique. I really didn't get a chance to really work on it but again, great to see immediate improvement.

I had a few rounds left in a few magazines so I tried some strong hand only shooting at the 6 inch plate at 25 yards with no hits. Lots of room for improvement here!

Around 120 rounds total for the session.

Dry fire session.

I spent an hour doing the Seeklander C & B drills (specialty drills and reloading drills) and some "field courses" in my garage featuring 9 USPSA targets of various sizes and distances as well as a paper plate rack. I've decided to only shoot the heads during dryfire to make things more difficult in dry fire than it may be in live fire. I have to remember to get a full grip on the magazines when pulling them from the mag pouches. I typically nail the reload if I have my index finger almost to the end of the first round. Also taking the nanosecond to decelerate just before inserting the magazine really helps nail my reloads, especially while moving.

I really have a hard time reaching the mag release button and would occasionally not be able to get the mag to drop at all. I noticed after a while that magazine #6 seemed to always have this issue so I pulled it from use. Any tips for getting the mag release to work better for small handed people? Let me know!

Edited October 9, 2013 by saibot

[saibot]

No practice today (10.9.2013).

I'm traveling for work and didn't want to try to bring a pistol just for one night of dry fire. And it's probably not a bad idea to take a break and let my forearms rest a little. I'm still trying to fight off getting tennis elbow in both arms and having to stop practicing. It does seem a little better lately. I hope my body just accepts that this is going to happen and rolls with it.

I did grab my copy of Brian's book for the plane since it's been a couple of years since I read it last. I didn't understand a lot of what he was saying back then anyway since I was just starting out and was lucky to hit the targets at all.

Very interesting take on the grip and keeping it neutral. It seems that the trend these days is to just crush the grip instead of just flowing with it. Not sure if that is to overcome less than perfect form or just the evolution of the technique. I'll have to experiment with it.

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.10.2013)

After a long day of travel I decided to just get a small session in and try experimenting with my draw after reading about staying relaxed in Enos' book. I spent about 30 minutes trying to stay relaxed and not tense up to see how it effected my draw. It seemed to speed things up and seemed to mess with my index a bit so I'll have to revisit it tomorrow. I also spent a little time working on my reloads, again, trying to keep from tensing up at all and was nailing my reloads with more consistency than usual and faster than normal, too.

I'll have to integrate that into my training next time out to get some quantitative data with the timer.

[Sean Gaines]

Read this, it may help the learning curve or get you thinking outside the box

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=129746&page=6&hl=%2Bfood+%2Bfor+%2Bthought#entry2019466

Good Luck!

[saibot]

Thanks for the link, Sean! Only a couple of pages into it so far and found some gems. Keeping it simple.

[saibot]

Live fire (10.12.13)

I guess today would be considered cross training. I shot a Practical Rifle match toady that was setup as a long distance PR match. Targets out to 550 yards. Very challenging with my 1-4 since I didn't know my holdovers. Still was a ton of fun and good practice for tomorrow's sniper match.

Dry fire

Working on refining my draw. Trying to be as efficient as possible and more importantly, more consistent. If I go crazy fast I wind up moving more than my arms and the sight bobbles around so much it takes me longer to pick up the sights. Also trying to dry higher so my eyes have a bit longer to pick up the sights. Getting better. I also did the Seeklander A drills that are focused on the draw.

I also worked on my reloads for a bit and shot a few dry fire stages I setup. Always a favorite.

Total dry fire, about 45 minutes.

[saibot]

Live fire (10.13.2013)

More "cross training" today. I shot a local sniper match and although it was a blast, my head wasn't in it and I made a ton of mistakes that cost me a lot of points. Although it's sight picture, trigger control, and follow though, I am having a hard time changing gears between the different disciplines. I may wind down all of the rifle business for a while and focus on the pistol.

41 rounds down the pipe of my new bolt gun.

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.14.2013)

I spent an hour and a half dry firing really focusing on figuring out my draw and perfecting my reloads. I discovered that if I roll my strong hand wrist forward where so the web of my hand hits the beavertail first I seem to nail it most of the time and my sights index on target easier. I'll have to lock that in.

Big thanks to OrigamiAK for the extended magazine release today. I did the Seeklander B drills that focus on the reload and did a bunch of extra reloads extending his drills. I seem to do better when keeping my crush grip on the pistol but keeping my arms loose. I am very happy with the speed and consistency I'm getting to with the reloads as long as I get a good hand position on the magazine. That starts to decay and I start missing my reloads and I have to force myself to get my index finger all the way down on the front of the magazine, then I start nailing them again.

I put a sheet of the Dawson grip tape made for my G34 on my pistol and the extra size is screwing me up. It's already marginal for me to reach the mag release button and with the tape it's pushed me over the threshold and I'm not always getting the mag ejected. Darn catch 22.

I also set up a couple of stages and "shot" those for a while. Lots of fun!

Edited October 15, 2013 by saibot

[OrigamiAK]

Saibot,

Congratulations on jumping into the river and getting on the ride. Rejoice at all the self-awareness and technical ability you will enjoy!

[saibot]

Saibot,

Congratulations on jumping into the river and getting on the ride. Rejoice at all the self-awareness and technical ability you will enjoy!

Thanks, OAK. It's been quite the learning experience. Somewhat frustrated with the pace, but just trying to be patient and keep at it. I often feel like I just started but getting some of the little things figured out. Hope I can shoot like you one of these days!

[saibot]

Live fire (10.15.13)

I shot 205 rounds on a handful of drills. Started out shooting groups at 7 yards, freestyle, strong hand, weak hand. Plate at 25 yards, and head shots at 25 yards, again, working on accuracy. Shot the Frank Garcia drill at 5 yards with 1.5" dots. Shot a bill drill, and the four aces drill on a head.

Then I tried setting up 3 targets at 7 yards (or maybe 10?) and tried to shoot by cadence to see if I could speed up my transitions. After some self analysis it seems that my transitions are one of my weakest points and I'm looking to speed that up significantly. Instead of bang, bang...bang, bang...bang, bang, I want hear bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I got down to 2.60 with my splits close to my transitions but I was really shooting out of control at that point and got a couple of C's. Draws were pretty slow at around 1.40 with a few down to 1.19 range. Not great.

I also had a couple of FTF's from the Glock. I think it was due to me hitting the slide stop on accident.

All in all, a pretty crumby day of practice. I took the night off and didn't dry fire.

Meh...

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.16.13)

Pretty light since I spent most of my cycles reloading 1k rounds of 9mm. But I did manage to work on my draws a little and cut some of the grip tape off my grip to restore my reloads. I worked on my NPS and adjusted my grip until I could draw with my eyes closed and the sights would be on target when I opened my eyes. I've been rebuilding my fundamentals from the ground up so it's been slow going. My reloads started to get better once I was warmed up a little.

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.17.13)

I had a big day of dry fire over a couple of sessions. Session one was for about an hour and a half and session two was for an hour. Well it really paid off and I had quite the breakthrough with my draw. Before my second session I watched the Seeklander DVD and noticed that the instant the gun is extended he breaks the shot. I don't know how that never resinated with me before, but I started thinking about that and realized to do that you'd have to have perfect sight alignment at full extension and that only comes with perfect NPA which only comes from getting a perfect grip on the pistol. I started paying attention to where the sights were when I extended the pistol and rotated my grip on the pistol until the sights would come up in perfect alignment every time. After what seemed like a thousand draws I had my grip nailed down and was able to replicate it consistently. I'm pretty darn excited to play with this grip, where I come strait down with my hand forming a "U" on the beavertail. It's hard to describe, but in essence, my hand is rotated a little more counter-clockwise than I'm used to doing. I'm anxious to try it out in live fire to see if it's a disaster durning recoil or not. But I'm optimistic.

I also worked on my transitions with a couple of drills to help improve my speed since it's probably the biggest bottleneck to my performance right now. I used some 1/3rd size USPSA targets for the Ben Stoeger transition drill where they start touching and you establish a par time. Then you start moving them apart and still hit the par time. I started modifying it and adding more targets and on and on...

Did a bunch of reloads and some strong hand, weak hand shooting as well. Dang good day of dry fire!

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.18.13)

I spent about 45 minutes trying to lock in my draw with varied success. Not as consistent as yesterday which is pretty frustrating to say the least.I didn't start until after 9:00 so maybe I'll chalk it up to being tired. I'll try it again tomorrow morning to see what that does for me. I did all of the Seeklander A drills then did some reloading drills. I finished up with running a couple of "stages."

Overall rating of meh...

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.19.13)

Session 1 - 1 hour

Feeling a little demoralized from last night's dry fire session I hit it again this morning really focusing on perfect form and going slowly. Once I was satisfied with how I was moving and my sight alignment I sped things up and was getting a good consistent draw with perfect sight alignment at full extension (and just a little prior). Still not fast, clocking in at around 1.2 seconds, but I'll work on that once the motion is subconsciousness. I worked on reloads a bit and then on the Ben Stoeger transition drill. Good day for it, and I was a full .5 seconds faster than last time I did it, and with good hits. I think the better draw is helping me out here. I'll have to tune up tonight and in the morning before tomorrow's match.

Dry fire session 2 - 1.5 hours

Still working on my draw which is getting better. I did the Stoeger movement B drills for a while then did some of the drill from his dry fire book. I worked on the El Prez a bit then created a couple of stages and ran through them. Lots of close/far targets and lots of reloads. I didn't nail them all, but today they were going in like butter. Let's hope all of this translates into better live fire in my next match. I did notice that I'm getting pretty sloppy on the distant head shots so I'm really having to slow way down and focus on the CENTER of the front sight.

Edited October 19, 2013 by saibot

[saibot]

Match (10.20.13)

I shot the "Outlaw USPSA" match at my club today. We lost our USPSA charter because of a muzzle of berm rule at our club that USPSA didn't like. So it's a 4 stage match with no classifier (bummer). Anyway, they tend to be larger field stages with lots of targets and steel, and targets at some longer distances.

In a lapse of judgement I tried some ProGrip for the first time before shooting the first stage. The stuff works very well, but I really threw me off because I couldn't slide my hand into position and it took me a second to recover and get started. I know better. Like the old saying goes, never change anything before a match, except maybe your underwear. It was also in the forties this morning any my hands were cold and like bricks. Between the ProGrip and the frozen hands I couldn't seem to hit the darn magazine release button so I wound up standing still trying to get a mag out. Meh. Happened twice that stage and I also had a failure to go into battery with the new Glock. Speaking of which, this the first match with the new pistol and I really like it already. The accuracy is noticeably better than with my previous pistol.

The second stage was a little better than the first, but not by much. After that I was warmed up and starting shooting to my ability. I hate the "two stage warm up" BS that I seem to have.

I also reverted back to some of my old ways instead of the nice refined, new and improved methods that I've been doing in dry fire. I guess my old bad habits are pretty deeply ingrained. I noticed that I wasn't really calling my shots and getting a good sharp front sight focus which I can attribute to dry fire errors. I'll have to keep working on that.

But overall, I'm happy with the new pistol and the dry fire is showing some improvement. I just need to mix in more live fire practice to keep things in check. Eager to see the match results!

A couple of highlights from the match worth mentioning. I did a fair amount of shooting on the move and had the gun up and ready to shoot while entering positions (mostly). I also tried to leave while shooting, typically a close/easy target. Trying to always be shooting. I think my movement helped even out my slow, frozen hand shooting. My steel shooting was also better than usual. We had 2 or 3 Texas stars and a plate rack. Lots of poppers and mini poppers. I also picked realistic stage plans and stuck to them, which helped on one tricky stage where at least a third of the shooters wound up running back to clean up a mini-popper.

Edited October 21, 2013 by saibot

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.21.13)

I spent 2 hours dry firing tonight starting with a bunch of draws, then did the Seeklander A drills (draws) and the Seeklander B drills (reloads), adding a bunch of extra reps along the way. Then setup and ran though a couple of stages for a while, and wrapped up with shooting on the move, with some reloads thrown in for good measure. One thing I did differently this session was tried shooting with both eyes open. It feels so darn strange and I had to put tape on my lens to even be pointing at the right target. OrigamiAK had some great info for me to try and some vision drills to work on which I'll start doing. He's a genius.

On a side note, the results from this weekend's match came out and I managed to take 7th overall out of 29 shooters which is very good for me, especially considering I had some serious issues on the first stage since my hands were cold. Looks like all of the dry fire is staring to help a little.

[saibot]

Live fire (10.22.13)

I had an unexpected opening in my schedule and the weather was amazing so I ran out for a quick range session today. Although I relish any chance I get to shoot and train, when a last second range trip pops up it isn't usually super productive since I don't go with a solid training plan and probalby get less out of the trip than I could have. I setup 3 6" plates about a yard apart and a single USPSA target with some pasters. I shot some groups two handed, strong hand, and weak hand. I moved back to 25 yards and hit the steel with an 80% hit rate (lame). I shot slow fire at 25 yards with my typical load and once with a test load (shorter load, JHP). The new load is grouping MUCH better so I'll play with the seating depth and see how that works.

I worked on some 2/reload/2 drills then some El Prez drills on the steel, and some variations on those. I noticed that my hit rate has dropped pretty badly and I'm having a hard time getting a hard front sight focus. Dry fire training scars?

Dry fire (10.22.13)

I spent about 1.5 hours dry firing tonight, starting with a couple of stages I setup instead of running drills first that way so I have a better idea how I'll perform cold. Next was the Stoeger A drills and C drills. Then a couple of stages again and some shooting on the move.

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.23.13)

Since we were running the press tonight I didn't get much time to dry fire, maybe 30 minutes if that. Practiced my draw a bit, lots of reloads, stepping reloads, some El Prez and some more reloads. I started missing more than I was nailing since I'm pretty beat. But some dry fire practice is better than no practice at all.

[saibot]

Dry fire (10.24.13)

I spent 1.5 hours dry firing this evening. I started out cold running a couple of stages which are definitely not as good as when I'm warmed up, but good to know. I did the Seeklander A and B drills, then practiced some transition drills. Did a bunch of El Prez and made up some draw, shoot, reload drills for fun. Ran the same two stages with much better times. I noticed I was standing still to do a reload before moving to the final position and tried it where I started moving as I fired the last shot and reloaded on the move to the next position, and hot damn, knocked two seconds off the time! I need to remember to always do that. I'm beat. And my form was getting sloppy so I called it and spent the last few minutes shooting on the move and practicing some vision drills to pull my focus back to the front sight with both eyes open while seeing only one fuzzy target. I think if I can start shooting with both eyes open it's going to be the biggest improvement I'll make this year.

...beat.

[OrigamiAK]

 

practicing some vision drills to pull my focus back to the front sight with both eyes open while seeing only one fuzzy target. I think if I can start shooting with both eyes open it's going to be the biggest improvement I'll make this year.

...beat.

 

That is great, dude, I am glad to read that retraining for both eyes open seems promising for you. My last biggest improvement in shooting was vision-related too. I love vision!